


wasteland, baby (i'm in love with you)

by zayheathers



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, F/F, Fluff, Post-War, Rare Pairings, but like briefly, except there's that pesky war, minerva mcgonagall seems like a repressed lesbian but is actually living her best lesbian life, war-era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:14:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26986519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zayheathers/pseuds/zayheathers
Summary: Minerva + Poppy, finding love in the darkest of times.
Relationships: Minerva McGonagall/Poppy Pomfrey
Comments: 12
Kudos: 37





	wasteland, baby (i'm in love with you)

> And the day that we watch the death of the sun,
> 
> That the cloud and the cold and those jeans you have on,
> 
> That you gaze unafraid as they saw from the city ruins,
> 
> Wasteland, baby,
> 
> I'm in love,
> 
> I'm in love with you.

— Hozier, _Wasteland, Baby!_

* * *

It’s cold. Always. Somehow it seems even the sky knows they’re losing the war. Everyday, it bathes them in bone-barring light, grey and dark and chilling. Everyday, she sees sunken, sallow faces of children she used to know, who now cannot even bear a smile as she passes them by. Everyday, she tends to curse-wounds and knife inflictions, or small children who rub their eyes raw because their parents haven’t made it.

  
  


She’s exhausted. For months, it feels as if it’s been non-stop breaking and mending, and cursing and healing. But she can’t do much about it, not under the restrictions she’s been given. The children, poor dears, come running to her because they don’t know where else to go, because the teachers aren’t allowed to care anymore, because they’re so afraid of this war.

  
  


Though, it isn’t just the children this era is effecting. Their old staff meet every night under the noses of _Severus_ (she is almost as disgusted at him as Minerva, but she also, somehow, feels inexplicably _sorry_ ) and those Carrow twins, trying to pretend everything is right with the world, but it isn’t enough. 

  
  


Rolanda’s lost all hope, running her mouth about “fuck-all” and depressing everyone within a metre of her general location. But she does it through jokes and jabs, and Poppy doesn’t _really_ know what’s going on with her but she knows it’s self-destructive. Aurora drinks herself into a stupor every so often, knowing she can’t do it every night but wishing it were so, and Rolanda’s usually the one who has to haul her up onto the sofa.

  
  


Horace is usually nowhere to be seen, his paranoia impeding even his most simple of tasks. She can’t say she blames him. As former head of Slytherin, she might even say his pressure equals that of Minerva, just because of the standard. The last time she’d seen him, _actually_ seen him, was when he’d stumbled into her hospital wing, clutching a bloodied arm and nursing a concussion.

  
  


Filius and Pomona remain relatively normal, though there is always an underlying tension under their tired, kind smiles and laughter that comes in small, explosive bursts. She worries for them, as she does everyone. It’s as if the both of them are prepared to snap at any moment, which the same can be said of herself and Minerva. Everyone is on edge, these days.

  
  


She misses simpler times, when the thing their children feared the most were overdue books and poor grades, save for Harry Potter. (Surely, there wasn’t a year that went by where Harry Potter was attending Hogwarts and Poppy _wasn’t_ nursing him back to health—she hopes he’s alright). 

  
  


Constantly, she reminds herself it’s no use missing the past, and the best she can do is heal the quickly emptying halls of Hogwarts, trying to lift the rapidly decaying bones of morale. That is what healers do, after all. But she is tired, so awfully tired, and there are times where she almost convinces herself otherwise.

  
  


Minerva notices, of course. There is little the woman doesn’t notice, especially when it concerns Poppy Pomfrey. She supposes that outwardly, she does in fact exude a certain drawn-ness, but she had thought it was nothing to note when compared to the haggardness of everyone else in this castle. But Minerva notices.

  
  


She always keeps her eye on her, keeps her close in small, private moments that they can steal under the noses of the death eaters and staff alike. Though the both of them know their friends would take no issue in it, Poppy selfishly keeps knowledge of them close to her heart, because it feels precious, just a little bit of magic left in this dark, horrible world. It’s the ember that keeps going even when the dark halls chill her to the bone.

  
  


That being said, she’s got the slightest feeling that their staff have an idea of what’s going on. Rolanda won’t keep her obnoxious eyebrow waggles and lewd comments to herself, and Pomona seems to always be giving them knowing but slightly wary looks. Poppy doesn’t really concern herself with their private thoughts, but she understands their _own_ concern. Love found during a war is most untimely, most fragile.

  
  


Still, she feels too tired to bring herself to think of anything other than Minerva anymore, when she lies in her arms at night, content to forget the way the world is no matter how irresponsible it may be.

  
  


“I can hear you thinking, love,” Minerva says into her hair, letting Poppy know that she had, in fact, not been asleep. “Tell me.”

  
  


Poppy sighs, turning into Minerva’s neck and attempting to find and savour more warmth. It really is cold. Maybe it’s the presence of Death Eaters—she wouldn’t be entirely surprised. Death Eaters, Dementors, it’s all the same thing really; they suck the happiness out of you, leaving behind only a frozen soul. “It’s nothing, really.”

  
  


“I find I don’t quite believe you.” 

  
  


She huffs a laugh. “Well, it isn’t anything new. I was only… thinking of now, and our place in all of it.”

  
  


“I see,” Minerva drawls, voice raspy and low from lack of use. Her hand tiredly traces the outline of her hip, and Poppy revels in how safe it makes her feel. That isn’t a common feeling, anymore. “What do you find our place is?”

  
  


“Here,” she says, and Minerva echoes it, questioning. “Yes, here. Not _right_ here in this bed, of course, but in Hogwarts. Tending the weak and broken, supporting the poor and frightened, consoling the unlucky. The students need us, and that’s not just my ego talking. We do a great deal here, even though it whittles us down to the core.”

  
  


“I suppose you’re right,” her love says, sighing. Poppy feels the flutter of her eyelashes as she struggles to keep them open, and slowly, the matron allows them to close with a stroke of her fingers. “Though, it’s quite an unpleasant thought.”

  
  


“Yes.”

  
  


They’re silent again, and Poppy closes her eyes. _Just a second_ , she tells herself, even knowing she’ll open them and see the dawning of the sun. “I love you, my Poppy,” is the last thing she hears, whispered in her ear, as she drifts into sleep.

* * *

It’s nearing the end of the battle, she knows it. If she were the type, she would say she could almost feel it in her bones, see it in the sky, hear it in her heartbeat, and weigh it in the heaviness of her heart. But she is nowhere near the type of person, and instead chalks it up to her intuition. 

  
  


Minerva McGonagall is not one to ever believe in failure, either, or in anything other than staring the devil (or Voldemort, but she is aware he comes in many forms) in the face, and telling him to shove an entire country’s worth of wands up his arsehole. But this? This is a unique circumstance.

  
  


She feels fear. And for the first time, she allows the tears to extinguish some of that fire she knows always dances in her eyes. To let the hope poorly disguised as determination fall just a little, to see past the veil. 

  
  


All she can think of now is how her heart is somewhere in the castle, battling off death eaters with a fierce vengeance, protecting the castle and it’s ideals.

  
  


( _“Our place is here,”_ she remembers the words fall from her sleepy lips, and isn’t that the truth. Perhaps death will call for her in this castle, and he will let her draw her last breath in the walls she knows better than the backs of her hands. Perhaps it will call for them both. She does not like that thought.)

  
  


It scares her, to think of Poppy as dead. To imagine the stubborn care and the stern kindness and the warm humour and firm, solid _love_ in the matron’s eyes as gone is to imagine a world gone quiet. It is to be dead herself. It’s these thoughts that send her looking. She supposes it should be easy, as she has always been one to follow her heart.

  
  


In the back of her mind, she recognises the fact that these thoughts are ludicrous, and that acting on them would prove her lack of control, but right now she doesn’t feel any control. She feels wild, afraid, and in need of Poppy. Never has she felt this desperate before.

  
  


When the first war occured, she fought bravely and with complete focus, understanding that there was little time for grief even though she had felt it most acutely. She had been younger then, and less reckless. She’d nothing to lose. Now, she has everything.

  
  


Poppy, she finds, is in the west of the castle, dueling two death eaters at once while protecting a terrified Ravenclaw clutching her arm to her chest. As Minerva nears, she can discern the blood-soaked edges from the clean ones.

  
  


Not even stopping to think about it, she stuns the death eater on the left, watching fall to the ground. Almost immediately after, Poppy stuns the other, and Minerva makes desperate eye-contact with her lover as he, too, falls before the last breath can leave his lungs.

  
  


“ _Poppy_.”

  
  


“Minerva!” She gasps. “Karina, go, now! Get to safety, and get immediate care if you can.” The girl shakes her head, determined to fight but Poppy frowns. “No, there is a group of students keeping the floo network open for those severely injured to leave. You _cannot_ battle concussed with a spliced arm. Now go.” Karina finally steps back, thanking the matron profusely, and runs. 

  
  


For a millisecond, Minerva selfishly, _disgustingly,_ terribly wishes she could do the same.

  
  


Instead she clears her throat, approaching her lover. “Are you alright?”

  
  


“Yes, though I couldn’t give the girl proper care. She’ll be off to find medical attention if she knows what’s good for her. Merlin knows it could have been some sort of dark-magic induced head injury, or—”

  
  


Minerva stops her by taking battered, bloodied hands in her own, “No, Pop, are _you_ alright?”

  
  


Poppy sighs. “I will be,” she says, unwaveringly, as if she has absolute faith that this will all be alright. She most probably does. Minerva wishes she did, too.

  
  


The sounds of battle, of bodies falling, hexes firing and people shouting, ring around them. Insistent like the moon rising and the sun descending, like the first cries of a child in need of a warm body and unconditional love, like the pulsing of Poppy’s heartbeat under her fingers, reassuring her that she’s _alive_. Everything will be fine.

  
  


She presses a kiss onto her lips, soft but Minerva can feel the intake of breath, the fluttering of eyelashes as tears drop from Poppy’s eyes. Either in relief or sadness, she doesn’t know. She only knows this moment could very well be their last. And she’ll hang on to it with every blink.

* * *

She doesn’t think there has ever been a sight so beautiful as Poppy, breathtaking as she stands under the arch of the Great Hall, grey hair creating a halo above her head, illuminated by the approaching sun. It’s almost as if she is an angel, which Minerva knows is true to some effect. She’s always been too good for this world.

  
  


Her heart flutters with love; Poppy looks haggard, exhausted, but the creases on her face are neither old or young, nor middle aged or anything in-between. Simply, she looks timeless: without an end, and without a beginning. Something falls from Minerva’s lips, perhaps a yell or even a whisper, she could not identify, so focused on the woman in front of her.

  
  


To have her in her arms again is a lifeline, a benediction, a breath of fresh air after being held underwater in a war she had been too tired to fight; had almost given up on. She smells of home. Of sweat and grime, yes, but of home. 

  
  


There are people around them, a quiet chorus of footsteps and wrenching sobs, welcoming the people fortunate enough to live, and bidding goodbye to those who lost their lives in battle. The thought makes her hold Poppy tighter, and as she breathes an “I love you” into her hair, she forgets the sounds echoing the hall, forgets the eyes that might be watching. Simply, she allows herself to hear the “I love you” back, and ignores the throbbing of her chest, the dead voices in her head, and only knows Poppy.

  
  


In the back of her mind, she knows their relationship will no longer be private, not after this moment, and Minerva thinks that if she never has to fear her heart dying again, it is a good trade-off.

* * *

It’s strange to hear the Great Hall so quiet, Harry thinks. For once, instead of loud chatter and clanging of forks (or spells being cast and people dropping _dead_ ), he hears the simple roll of pebbles under his shoes as he makes his way through, listens to the undisturbed waves of the wind as they rustle his hair back and forth, and allows the soft murmurs of his friends (his family) to act as a balm for his heart.

  
  


For a while, he had taken comfort with the Weasley family, before realising they’d probably—even after their half-hearted insistence—prefer to be left alone. They may be too kind to say it, but he can see it in their drawn faces and heavy smiles. So he’d started walking around, sat with Hagrid for a bit (but he’d fallen asleep, and Harry wishes his brain would let him do the same), and then looked around for some quiet company.

  
  


There are very few people, he thinks, that he would seek out at a time where all he wants to do is have quiet conversation with someone who will know what to say; the woman sitting on a (rather comfortable, if he’s being honest) pile of rocks, leaning back with her eyes closed and still, after everything, dressed in green, is one of them.

  
  


“Professor,” he says with a smile, and without even opening her eyes, the woman smiles back. It’s a strange thing to see on the woman’s almost persistently stern face, but it isn’t unsightly at all. Harry’s eleven-year-old self would be shocked.

  
  


“Potter,” she answers, lips still curled in a smile. Her chest, Harry can see, heaves and shakes with every breath in a way that betrays the excruciating pain she no doubt feels. Whether it’s a lasting impact of the four stunners she took a year ago, or some new injury she’s retained, Harry isn’t sure. All he knows is that it makes his heart clench in guilt and sympathy.

  
  


“Don’t dwell on it,” McGonagall says, bringing his thoughts back to the present. 

  
  


“Sorry?”

  
  


“You heard me,” she says, back to stern and sharp—though he knows how to detect her softness by now (that he can be sure of)—and Harry sighs. Obviously, he’d been wrong about his impassive face abilities. “Nothing that can be done isn’t happening already. Poppy will be back soon, in any case. Sit.”

  
  


And so he does, half expecting her to offer him a biscuit (his mind won’t allow him to be surprised again). “There’s something on your mind,” his Professor says, looking at him with piercing eyes, and somehow, he feels like she just _knows_ —she sees him. It's a nice thought. “Tell me.”

  
  


Leaning back onto the upturned table McGonagall is propped up on, Harry sighs again. He’s embarrassingly ready to take the weight of his chest. “I… just feel tired, now. And sad. But, somehow, there’s a _peace_ in me that I haven’t felt in ages. Or in ever, really. But it makes me think: at what cost? People have lost their _lives_ in this war, their loved ones, their livelihood, but I feel peace. Is… is that…” He trails off. “I dunno. I just feel…”

  
  


“Guilty,” says McGonagall knowingly. “You feel as if you shouldn’t feel relieved, or glad, due to the cost of our victory.” Harry nods, glad that she _gets_ it. “Of course you do, Harry,” she says with a sad smile, and he’s startled, because that hadn’t been what he’d expected her to say. 

  
  


“It’s never been in your nature to allow yourself things. I resented that for you, when you were younger. Now, it seems, there is no changing it. There is only moving forward. In times like these Harry, you must remember that not everything is in your control—”

  
  


It’s in that moment Madam Pomfrey comes up beside her, kneeling on the floor and pressing a cloth to the side of McGonagall’s bloody face. “Minerva, I told you, you mustn't over exert yourself.”

  
  


She scoffs, rolling her eyes while trying (but failing) to conceal the wince of pain she no doubt feels from her chest. Harry expects her to tell Pomfrey off for telling her what to do, and that she can take care of herself, nurse or not, but she only says, “You haven’t said hello to Harry.”

  
  


Despite her annoyance, Madam Pomfrey smiles with a hint of fondness at the woman who wheezes with every breath. She smiles at Harry, too, “Hello, there, Mister Potter. I do hope you haven’t managed to get yourself hurt again.” She motions for him to come closer, so she can evaluate his health.

  
  


“Oh, no I’m fine. Hagrid had a look over me.”

  
  


“Well, no offence to Rubeus, but I’d feel safer knowing I’ve looked you over. For my peace of mind.” 

  
  


“Really, Madam Pomfrey, I’m fine. I don’t feel any pain and I’m pretty sure I don’t have any major injuries.”

  
  


“H—” Pomfrey starts, but McGonagall’s well timed scoff cuts her off, and she’s subjected to the matron’s signature glare (one that Harry has _also_ been a recipient of).

  
  


But though she might be a little mad, her attention goes back to the woman, pushing back a strand of hair and marking her breathing so tenderly Harry feels he’s intruding.

  
  


He’d heard of their reunion (thanks to Hermione, who somehow in the midst of all this still makes it her business to know everything) in front of the great hall, and honestly hadn’t been too surprised at the revelation. Looking at them now, he can feel the extent of their love for each other, and it makes him feel warm and happy. They fit together well. They make sense.

  
  


“You aren’t intruding, Potter,” McGonagall says, and Harry once again wonders how she’s able to so perfectly read his mind. A hand comes up to pat his shoulder with fondness, and Harry’s a little shocked at how warm, how solid it feels.

  
  


Harry nods, not knowing what to say, and they watch people moving to and fro until McGonagall falls asleep.

  
  


“She cares for you, you know,” Madame Pomfrey says to him after a moment. “She’s too stubborn to admit it, of course, being a Gryffindor,” they both laugh, Pomfrey with a roll of her eyes and Harry with a strange relief, “but she does.”

  
  


“I,” he says, feeling like he needs to say this, but that it’s awkward to say nevertheless. Pomfrey only looks at him knowingly, rubbing his back with the hands of a matron.

  
  


“It’s alright, my boy. We know.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! as always, kudos + comments are loved but never mandatory


End file.
